A large number of people in the United States and other countries keep small animals, including cats, as pets. Many, if not most, of these pets live indoors with their owners and rarely, if ever, go outside. The main solution to the problem of providing a location for such pets to deposit feces, the products of elimination remaining after food has been digested, and urine has been the litter box. Over the years since this solution was first introduced, a wide array of litter box options has become available to pet owners. Available litter materials used in these litter boxes as a medium where an indoor pet can deposit its elimination products have changed as well. Despite the changes, however, pet owners continue to search for a litter box that effectively contains pet elimination products with minimal or no odor, that is easy to clean, that is at least somewhat unobtrusive to human occupants of the space where it is located, and that the pet will actually use.
The variety of types and sizes of animal litter containers available for a pet owner in need of such a product may be rather overwhelming. The 22 Jan. 2013 issue of apartmenttherapy.com, for example, presented a “Best Cat Litter Boxes Roundup” with a range of litter box designs, some of which incorporate a pan of litter into what is essentially a piece of furniture. Pet supply stores, such as PetCo and PetSmart, also offer a wide range of litter containers, from a very basic open top rectangular pan that holds litter material to covered boxes and enclosed domes and other shapes that at least partially conceal the litter material from view.
In addition to the great variety of commercially available animal litter containers noted above, an extensive variety of pet and animal litter containers is also described in the United States patent art. U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,702 to Hasiuk; U.S. Pat. No. 5,713,302 to Walter; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,332,429 to Gramlich, for example, all disclose variations of enclosed litter containers. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US2005/0115509 to Rudolph and U.S. Pat. No. 7,150,242 to Schuster et al and U.S. Pat. No. 8,191,509 to Fountain et al all disclose examples of open top animal litter boxes. While these designs represent attempts to solve specific litter container issues, such as the scattering of litter material, none provides a litter container for a range of small pet animals with a variety of different elimination behaviors and habits that minimizes inconvenience to pet owners.
Most litter containers emphasize that they are easy to clean; the actual ease of cleaning is relative, however. To maintain a litter container in a sanitary condition, which is as essential for the pets as it is for the humans they live with, litter must be cleaned and changed at regular intervals. The extent of the cleaning usually depends on the kind of litter material used and the number of pets using the litter box. At some point, all of the litter must be changed, and the container sanitized. Maintaining a clean litter container can be challenging for the owners of cats or other pets that exhibit typical elimination behavior when urine and/or feces are deposited only on the litter material within the litter container. Maintaining a clean litter container can be especially challenging, however, when a pet exhibits atypical elimination behavior or the pet differs in other ways from the “standard” pet for which the litter container was designed. In these situations, this atypical pet may, for whatever reason, deposit elimination products outside the container or inside the container in locations other than on the litter. Both cases require additional work by the pet owner to clean and sanitize not only the litter container, but also the area around the container.
Cats, the primary pet animal users of litter containers, may not only exhibit atypical elimination behavior, but are also notoriously selective about using particular kinds of litter containers. Although an open top rectangular type of litter container may be used willingly by many cats, it is not aesthetically pleasing to many cat owners. In addition, if a cat that uses this type of litter container changes its elimination behavior, for example as a result of illness or old age, spillage of feces and urine with the odor and mess that accompanies this outside the litter container is likely. Cat owners confronted with the spillage of elimination products may replace the open top litter container with an enclosed type of litter container, such as one of the types of enclosed litter containers shown and described in the Hasiuk, Walter, and Gramlich patents or the apartmenttherapy.com publication noted above. One of the currently available enclosed litter container designs may work well for pets that exhibit typical or standard elimination behavior. Such enclosed litter containers may seem to be a solution to a pet's atypical elimination behavior that results in elimination products spreading beyond an open litter container. Most of the available enclosed litter container designs, however, may be too physically confining or restrictive for many pets to use effectively. Additionally, the available enclosed litter containers do not effectively accommodate a range of cats or other small animals that vary from the typical animal in size, shape, and age, as well as in elimination behavior and habits.
There is a need, therefore, for a pet litter container designed to accommodate the needs of litter container-using small animals of varied sizes, shapes, and ages, as well as varied elimination behaviors and habits that also accommodates the needs of pet owners for an attractive, easily sanitized litter container that captures and contains animal elimination products within the container.